When We Fail: God's Grace Preserves His Promises

His promises don't fail. That's what we see in in the next chapter, Genesis 21, that God's promises do not fail. Even when we fail, even when our faith falters, even when we we miss the mark, his promises don't fail. We've just experienced the most definitive example or or marker of that. Jesus' death and resurrection that we celebrated last week. That is the surest promise that you will ever have. The gospel being that our sins were laid on Jesus, that he died for those sins, that he rose again to new life. That is a sure promise that we can live by, that we can now live through Jesus. And so don't let your failures. Don't let your weaknesses rob you of the joy of knowing them and experiencing that today. Let's pray. [00:26:22] (65 seconds)  #PromisesNeverFail

Now adultery, which essentially is what this would have been, is a a capital offense both within scripture, within the Old Testament, and even without among many cultures of the ancient Near East. And so even though Abimelech, they're not, you know, the Lord's people, they're pagan as it were, they still would have understood the seriousness of this offense. And so it wouldn't have been something bizarre for Abimelech to hear. So God tells him, hey. You've taken in another man's wife. You're about to die because of this. Interestingly, again, we have to ask, where's Abraham in all this? Why isn't it Abraham going to Abimelech and saying, hey. By the way, she's my wife. You ought not do this. [00:08:25] (51 seconds)  #SpeakUpNotHide

It is the Lord who prevents Abimelech from sinning in this situation. It is the Lord who is maintaining his own promises. Even though all of this is a direct result of Abraham's actions, it is the Lord who is maintaining his own promises. That will be an important labor. Abimelech and his people, they respond accordingly. Abimelech recounts this dream to his people, and and they're all terrified rightfully so. And so they bring Abraham in. They question him. They interrogate him, ask him to explain himself in verses nine through 18. First, Abraham, he says, well, I did this because I thought there was no fear of God in the land. [00:12:11] (52 seconds)  #GodGuardsPromises

Again, what is at stake in all of this is that all of God's promises are really kind of hanging by a thread in all of this because of what Abraham has has done. All the promises that God has made to Abraham and all that he has said that would come through Abraham, the blessings to the nations, is at stake. If Abimelech takes Sarah in as his wife, then when Sarah does finally bear Abraham, Isaac, couldn't someone then raise the accusation that that Isaac must be illegitimate? It then calls into question the the birth of Isaac and whether he is really this child of promise. [00:09:16] (52 seconds)  #PromisesAtStake

Abimelech doesn't deny taking her in. He doesn't say, no. No. I I didn't do it. But he pleads that his intentions were honest, and he didn't know that she was mirrored. Interestingly, in this passage, Abimelech is really treated or or seen as more morally superior than Abraham. We almost kind of have a soft spot maybe for Abimelech as opposed to Abraham because he's caught in the middle because of Abraham's actions. But notice though in in verse six, in chapter 20 verse six, God replies to Abimelech in this dream. He says, yes. I know that you did this with a clear conscience. [00:11:18] (44 seconds)  #ConscienceCounts

And so the the weight of this scenario that that I don't want us to miss, just like in Genesis 12 with Pharaoh in Egypt, is Abraham really dishonors his wife. Rather than being honest, rather than kind of shielding her from these scenarios and these situations, Abraham direct directly leads to some other man taking her into his household to be his wife. He he dishonors his wife. Again, Abraham in this situation is not being painted in a very favorable light. But as it happens, king Abimelech takes Sarah to be his wife and his household, but starting in verse three, verses three through eight, really, most of the dialogue and most of the action is between Abimelech and God. [00:07:17] (57 seconds)  #HonorYourSpouse

And just a little bit of time that we've spent in in Genesis, think of the things with Abraham, at least. Think of what Abraham has experienced in his life. He has experienced some spiritual times, some very intense and and vivid experiences with the Lord. And so maybe on the one hand, we would say, wow. Because of all of that, Abraham must just be getting better and better, more and more perfect. But we see often that that's not the case. Abraham often stumbles. Abraham often makes mistakes. As powerful as Abraham's experiences were, he was still an imperfect person prone to failure. [00:02:18] (47 seconds)  #FaithfulButFlawed

And often, how our lives work is we don't necessarily always get more and more perfect as our life goes on. Our lives are oftentimes more kind of a a cycle. And, yes, we have our our moments. Yes, we have those highs where we're celebrating Jesus. We're singing praises to him. We're thankful for him and his resurrection. But then sometimes, we still fall short. Sometimes we still fail. And so this morning is about what we do with those moments when we fail. Even though we've known of of God and his power and how he has worked in our life, what do we do with those moments? [00:01:25] (47 seconds)  #RespondToFailure